April Fool
by UnVeRsEd
Summary: Terra could’ve probably picked a better day to tell Aqua how he felt… Terqua, TerraxAqua


**~Terra could've probably picked a better day to tell Aqua how he felt…~**

**~o~oOo~o~0~o~o0O0o~o~0~o~oOo~o~**

It was a quiet, cool morning in the Land of Departure. The sun was barely out, and it looked like the rest of the day was going to be beautiful.

Expecting a few extra hours of sleep, Terra rolled over in his bed and pulled the covers over his head, blocking out a few stray rays of sunlight that had managed to sneak into his room. _This, _he thought, _is bliss…_

Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

"FIRE!! THE CASTLE'S ON FIRE!!"

The loud cry startled the eldest Keyblade apprentice into sitting up, becoming tangled up in his sheets in the process. "WHAT!?" After he managed to free himself, he half-fell out of bed, bolted across his room, and flung the door open, sprinting down the hallway without bothering to close the door, headed for the source of the cry.

Halfway down the hall, Aqua came out of her room and joined him; she was still clad in her pajamas, same as he was, disheveled light-blue hair whipping around her face as she ran. Terra knew he probably looked worse, but that wasn't important. What _was_ important was that Ven could be in danger.

As Terra turned a corner into a different hallway, he found something on the ground obstructing his path, and skidded to a stop before he collided with it. Aqua, however, didn't see him stop until she crashed into him, sending him reeling forward. Ven had to shuffle over from his sitting position on the floor to avoid being trampled while Terra tried regaining his balance. "Jeez, you guys are so _clumsy_."

Terra blinked in confusion when he saw the blonde apprentice staring up at him from the floor, completely calm. "Ven…? Where's the fire?" Terra's cobalt eyes darted around the hall, looking for any source of danger, and Aqua crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg, awaiting Ven's perfectly reasonable answer.

"Fire?" Ven narrowed his eyes at the two older apprentices. "What fire? OH. _Wait._ Do you mean… _this_ fire?" The apprentice held up a piece of paper, which was promptly snatched by Aqua. She inspected it thoroughly, and her intense gaze turned to one of surprise, then one of annoyance. Curious, Terra took a hold of her wrist and pulled the page toward him. There was a (rather badly drawn) picture of a generic castle, with jagged flames drawn all over it. The image was complete with frightened stick people running from the burning castle.

"…Ven…," Terra said slowly, still staring at the picture, "did you wake up the _whole castle…_ for a _picture?_"

The young apprentice suddenly hopped up onto his feet, eyes glinting mischievously. "April fools, you guys!" he exclaimed, grinning.

The older apprentices paled. April Fool's day was one of Ventus' favorite holidays, and he never failed to celebrate it – whether he would go all-out this year, though, was a different story.

Terra looked over at Aqua, who returned his somewhat terrified glance. It was at this point that Terra had realized that he had never let go of Aqua's wrist, and hastily dropped it. Aqua looked away from him; Terra could've sworn there was a slight blush on her face. Not wanting to make the situation even more awkward, he averted his eyes to the opposite wall.

Luckily for them, Ven was too wrapped up in the success of his prank to notice the little exchange between his two friends. What he also failed to notice was that his now sleep-deprived Master was approaching him from behind.

**~o~oOo~o~**

_I love karma_… Terra thought as he watched Ven run around the huge castle for what seemed to be the millionth time. Terra grinned at him as he ran past, and the younger boy shot him a look at stuck his tongue out at him. Terra just laughed at his immaturity.

"That's what you get for pranking the Master, Ven!"

"Shut up, Terra!"

"Are you done enjoying Ven's punishment, Terra?"

The eldest apprentice hadn't noticed Aqua approach him from behind, and started when he heard her voice. "Jeez, Aqua. Don't do that to me."

"Sorry," she apologized. "So, are you ready to go back to training?"

"Yep," was his simple reply as he stretched his arms over his head, then let them swing back down. "I'm ready."

As the duo made their way to the high cliff that overlooked the entire valley, Terra couldn't help but feel a slight tension in the air between them. He's had feelings for Aqua for a while now – they had appeared not long after he first met her, actually – but he had never been confident enough to act on them. _Should I tell her or should I wait?_ His thoughts were interrupted when Aqua poked him in the arm. "Hello? Earth to Terra?"

The apprentice snapped back to reality, focusing his attention on his azure-eyed friend. She stared up at him, one eyebrow raised. Terra rubbed the back of his head and muttered an apology, inciting a small giggle from the girl. _Why did she have to _do _that? _Terra complained inwardly, following Aqua into the open area on top of the cliff. He summoned his Keyblade, Earth Shaker, and went into his battle stance, bending his knees and holding his weapon at his side. As soon as she reached the other side of the clearing, she spun around and summoned her own weapon, Rail Fall, and held it at her side in her battle stance. The two Keyweilders stared each other down, daring the other to strike first. After what seemed like a few minutes, Terra couldn't take any more inactivity and stepped forward.

Aqua reacted with lightning speed, jabbing her Keyblade up in the air with both hands. Terra barely had any time to step back as a giant ice crystal suddenly shot out of the ground right where he had been standing not even a second before. He smashed through the icy projections, sending frozen shards flying in every direction, and charged straight at his opponent.

He swung his blade at her side, and she swiftly back-stepped, the weapon missing her by barely an inch. She countered by swinging her Keyblade up and batting Terra's weapon away, leaving him wide open. Aqua took the opportunity and began to assault Terra with a barrage of rapid attacks, raining spinning swings and quick stabs on the other apprentice to keep him off balance. Terra could barely keep up with her, and it took his best effort to block as many of the attacks as he physically could, constantly kept moving by her seemingly endless attacks.

A few seconds later, her attack briefly faltered, and Terra took his chance. The end of his Keyblade glowed a bright bluish-white, and he suddenly spun around, leaving an icy shockwave in his wake. Caught off-guard, the younger apprentice was barely able to produce a magic shield to block the intense attack; there was enough force behind it to make her skid back a foot or two, even with the shield's protection. Seeing that he had put her on the defensive, Terra pressed his attack.

They continued this back and forth cycle, trading offensive and defensive roles until both apprentices were exhausted. Aqua collapsed into a bench closer to the cliff's edge, breathing heavily. Terra supported himself on the seat back, trying to catch his breath. Aqua found herself laughing, and received a confused look from Terra. "When…" she panted, "When did… you learn Diamond Dust?"

"Oh." Terra laughed in relief, for some reason expecting a different question, and turned to look down at Aqua. "During training. With Master Eraqus…" Terra trailed off as he stared at Aqua, becoming lost in her ocean-blue eyes. Aqua caught herself staring back, and quickly averted her gaze to the huge castle in the distance.

"It's almost sundown," she suddenly realized. "We've been up here all day…"

_Now's my chance, _Terra thought, _I might not be alone with her again for a while…_

"Aqua?" he asked tentatively, the courage he had during their spar draining away much quicker than he wanted it to.

"Hmm?" Aqua looked up at the older boy, patiently awaiting his question.

"Err…" _Now's not the time to think twice, Terra! _"Aqua, for a long while now, I umm…" Terra faltered, at a loss for words. Aqua raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and motioned with her hand for him to continue. "I…I have feelings for you Aqua, and–"

"Stop."

Aqua put a finger over Terra's lips, cutting him off mid-sentence. Surprised, Terra took her hand and moved it away from his mouth, and asked "What?"

"This isn't funny," Aqua declared, her face becoming as hard as a stone wall.

"W-what is?"

Aqua stood up from the bench and roughly pulled her hand out of Terra's grasp. "Feelings aren't something to joke about, Terra." Before Terra could register what she had said, the blue-haired Keyweilder had stormed off, back to the castle. Utterly confused, the brown-haired apprentice pondered what he had said wrong, until he realized—

_It's April Fool's Day. She thinks I was kidding!!_

**~o~oOo~o~**

"Terraaa? What's wrooong?"

Terra had to try his hardest to ignore the youngest apprentice's pokes, but it felt like Ven would make a crater in his shoulder. "Just leave me alone, Ven," he finally muttered, burying his face in his hands. The younger boy sat on the bench next to him, and resumed poking him.

"You know talking helps, right? What happened? Does it have to do with Aqua?"

Terra groaned into his hands, a response Ven took as "Yes, it totally does and I need you to help me right now."

"Umm… Terra? What _exactly_ happened?"

Terra's responded, though his voice was muffled by his hands, "…I was _about_ to tell her how I felt about her…but she cut me off, told me it wasn't funny, and stormed off."

Ven's mouth formed a small "o" as he understood what had transpired. "She… thought it was an April fool's joke?"

Terra sat up, leaning back so far that his head hung back over the back of the bench, and stared up at the night sky. "I guess so," he sighed, "I really should've picked a better day, huh?"

Ven linked his hands behind his head and leaned back into the seat, following Terra's gaze. "I guess you could've…" The young apprentice turned his head to look at Terra, obvious sympathy showing on his face. "Do you think you can fix it?"

Terra grunted. "Not today. I don't want to risk her thinking it's just a joke. _Again._"

"Sounds like a plan…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"I think we should go back to the castle. It's getting late, and we've got training to do tomorrow."

Terra waved him off. "Go ahead, Ven, I'll catch up…" The blonde was hesitant, but he left anyway, waving at his friend as he ran back to the castle. Terra sighed, running a hand through his messy brown hair. _Damage control tomorrow… fun…_

After a little while, he finally convinced himself to get up and head back, though he was dreading running into Aqua before the day was over. He considered skipping dinner, but his stomach grumbled in protest.

_Oh well._

**~o~oOo~o~**

Dinner was awkward, to say the least. Aqua refused to meet Terra's gaze, and Ven kept looking back and forth between the two older Keyweilders, obviously concerned for their mental well-being. Eraqus politely ignored the silent conflict, and quietly ate his dinner and dismissed himself from the table, suggesting that all three apprentices go to bed as soon as dinner was over.

As soon as Eraqus left, Aqua quickly finished her food and excused herself from the table apparently wanting to go to bed early. When she was gone, Terra groaned and considered banging his head against the table, until Ven caught his attention. "Hey Terra?"

"Hmm?"

"I think you should talk to her before she goes to bed."

"Why?"

"Because if not, she'll go to bed thinking that you really _were_ joking around and she'll be mad at you tomorrow."

"Nrgh…"

"Go on, Terra!"

"Okay, fine!" Terra stood up from his seat and ran out the door, hoping he would be able to catch up with Aqua before she got to her room. Fortunately, he caught her just as she was about to go into her room, her hand halfway raised to the doorknob. "Aqua!"

She stopped just as her fingers made contact with the door, and sighed. "What is it, Terra?"

Terra stopped in front of her, pausing to catch his breath. Running was Ven's thing. "About earlier today…I wasn't kidding, I really meant what I was going to say. I know I picked a bad day, you know, after this morning and –"

Once again, Aqua cut him off, but in a very different way. She stood up on her toes and pressed her lips against Terra's cheek, effectively surprising him into silence. It took a few seconds for Terra to be able to form words again, but the result was an incoherent sentence. "I–but you–earlier–?"

Aqua smiled mischievously at the older apprentice, eyes twinkling with amusement. She reached for the doorknob again and slipped into her room, but not before whispering something that sounded like "April Fool's, Terra."

Terra gawked at the door, almost unable to comprehend what had just happened.

_That little…_

**~o~oOo~o~0~o~o0O0o~o~0~o~oOo~o~**

A/N: I just realized that I hate writing third person. Snargh. DX

I KNOW THIS IS LATE, I'M SORRY. I has less time than I thought I did yesterday. D:

But yeah. My first Kingdom Hearts oneshot!! A decent-sized one, just for you. Yes, I've made more, but they're all OC-centric and really really bad, so you won't be seeing them.

Yeah, I know I need to work on _Sunsets and Ice Cream, _I'm doing the best I can, okay? D:

Musical Inspiration: Terra's theme (remix), Enchanted Dominion Battle theme (remix), Naminé's theme (remix). Weird combination, I know. .

Reviews and critiques make me really really happy and encourage me to keep writing, so please review!! 3

Flamers will be doused with a fire hose. :3


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